Encouraging Joy & Grace

Yawn. I've been doing a lot of yawning lately. When I started dragging my wide awake children to bed two hours early so I could go to sleep I thought maybe I better call my doctor. Turns out I'm running border line short on iron and border line short on Vitamin D. Go figure. It only rains around here. Anyway, I told the resident chef about my issue and I stopped at the store for some heavy duty vitamins and moved on.

Later in the week I noticed that my sweet spouse was cooking steak. Repeatedly. Lots of red meat. Feeding me iron. What a great guy. One night as I was cutting into my tender medium rare steak I thanked him.

"Hey babe, thanks for cooking all the steak. It means a lot to me that you responded to my iron deficiency by cooking me all this beautiful meat".

He paused.

"Well, truthfully we're only having steak because it's been on sale at the store recently".

Oh.

Then he laughed and said "You better thank God, because clearly HE was watching out for you".

I'm reading a fantastic new book by Mike Foster called "People of the Second Chance". This book encouraged my heart. I gasped, cried, laughed and took notes. If you struggle with grace this is the perfect guidebook on how to usher the people around you into glory. It's a friendly, love-soaked, engaging read. One of the most compelling concepts is that we are all God's "Beloved". Mike's contention is that we should extend grace to those around us and OURSELVES because God loves us. No reason other than that. God loves you. God loves me. Revolutionary.

Couple days ago a friend and I had one of those two minute conversations in the parking lot that make up so much of what mom friendships look like. Life is too crazy for long lunches. We make do with car window chats that remind us we love each other. This week' s session included reminiscing about childhood pets. I had a dog and a cat named Pricsilla and Aquilla. Oh yes, we did in fact name our pets after the apostle Paul's friends in the New Testament. Terrible pet names. Hard to say. Mid chat, my friend's daughter ran up and showed us the picture of her cat. We grinned and told her, while gorgeous, we thought it looked more like a antelope. Or a dinasaur. She shrugged. We grinned. Short little chats keep us connected.

Later that evening I received this text.

"I literally just read this tonight. It is part of the reading I was to do today!!! So funny!

"Give my greetings to Priscilla and Aquila and those living in the household of Onesiphorus."
​ 2 Timothy 4:19

Ha! My dog and cat and a dinosaur!
I love when God tucks a little message in to say that He sees us. He hears our big requests and our trivial fun. He loves us. A little chat that keeps us connected.

God works little signs and wonders and answers and beauty into my ordinary days. Sometimes I don't take the time to give him credit. Sometimes I try to thank the wrong source. In reality, everything good in my life is from God. Like steak and the Onesiphoris and all my second chances.